


Meanwhile the wild geese are heading home again

by rsadelle



Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: Adulthood, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27985455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: Cassie wants her dad. No, she wants her mum. She wants her mum to tell her how to do this, how to be six months pregnant and have your husband leave you. But her mum is long gone, and so she wants her dad.
Relationships: Cassie Perez & Jimmy Perez, Duncan Hunter & Cassie Perez
Comments: 11
Kudos: 43
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Meanwhile the wild geese are heading home again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shotboxer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotboxer/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide shotboxer! I hope you enjoy this and that you have a happy Yuletide!
> 
> Title taken, with modifications, from Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese."

He leaves. Kevin leaves, and Cassie packs a bag with shaking hands. She wants her dad. No, she wants her mum. She wants her mum to tell her how to do this, how to be six months pregnant and have your husband leave you. But her mum is long gone, and so she wants her dad.

She buys a plane ticket, feeling numb. Six months pregnant and showing means that everyone is very solicitous of her, from the ticket agent to the woman seated next to her.

It's getting late by the time she gets to her dad's. Not the house they lived in when they first came back to the island. A new one, now, with bedrooms for her dad and Duncan, one for her when she's home, and one for Alan he's never even set foot in.

Her dad and Duncan are both in, sitting at the table. Cassie vaguely registers the mess that means her dad was the one to cook.

Duncan notices her first. "Cassie!" He's smiling, genuinely pleased to see her. "I didn't know you were coming home."

Her dad looks her way, and then he stands and comes over to her, and she drops her bags and falls into his arms where she cries like she hasn't since her mum died. Maybe not even then; she'd tried so hard to be strong for her dad.

"He left me," Cassie says between sobs. Her stomach is too big; she doesn't fit in her dad's arms the way she used to. It makes her cry harder.

"Ah, Cassie," her dad murmurs.

She sits down, eventually, and Duncan makes up a plate for her. Her dad sits at her side, one hand on her shoulder. Duncan bends to kiss the top of her head before he takes his seat. It's about the limit of what Cassie can take from him just now.

"You know," her dad says when she goes up to bed on the first night, exhausted and ready to sleep until she can't sleep anymore, "you can stay as long as you want."

"I know, Dad." Cassie wraps her arms around him and kisses his cheek. "I love you." It makes it a little bit better, and so does being able to walk outside and turn her face into the wind, watch the waves, and smell the sea.

On the third day, she sits outside with her dad in the dimming light. She leans against her dad's shoulder, and he puts his arm around her. Duncan comes out to join them, bringing glasses of wine for himself and her dad and water for her.

They sit in silence for a time, listening to the wind and the waves. Shetland is her home in a way Glasgow, no matter how much she's loved it, isn't.

Cassie leans her head onto her dad's shoulder. "I'm relieved," she confesses. "I mean, I'm really angry, and now I know how Mum felt," she can't stop herself from saying, directed half at Duncan and half into the night, "but I'm also relieved." She rubs her belly. "The closer it got, the more I knew he wouldn't be a good father to my child."

"Oh, honey," her dad says.

"You know you always have us," Duncan says.

"I know." Cassie tears up. "I don't want to go back."

"You don't have to," her dad says. "You can stay here with us, as long as you want to."

"Can I?" Cassie asks. She tips her head up to look at her dad, looks over at Duncan. "You already did this. Do you want another baby in the house?"

"Of course we do," Duncan says. "That's our grandchild you're carrying."

"Cassie," her dad says, "this is your child. We're always here to help. Of course we want you here if that's what you want."

Cassie sniffles and leans her head on her dad's shoulder. He cups his hand over the side of her head, kisses her forehead. It's been so long since she wanted her dad to worry about her.

Cassie goes downstairs in the middle of the night. She can't sleep, and she's hungry. Her dad's at the table, laptop open and papers around him.

"You're still working in the middle of the night," she says as she goes to the refrigerator.

Her dad closes the laptop. "You don't know I'm working."

Cassie looks over her shoulder at him. "I know you, Dad. You're working."

"D'you want me to make you something?"

"No," Cassie says, "and I see you trying to change the subject." She gets herself some bread and cheese and takes them to the table, sitting at the corner next to her dad.

"You're up late too," her dad says.

"Couldn't sleep, and then I was hungry." Cassie takes a bite of her bread and cheese.

Her dad leans his elbows on the table, rests his chin on his clasped hands. Cassie offers him a piece of her snack. He shakes his head and seems perfectly content to watch her.

"I thought I was done being angry with Duncan," she tells him when she's not so ravenously hungry and it's just the rest of it keeping her up, "but it turns out I'm not. He must have hurt Mum so much."

"Aye," her dad says. "I think he did." He reaches out and takes Cassie's hand in his. "I try to remember I got to be your dad because of that."

Cassie squeezes his hand. "I'm glad you're my dad, but it doesn't stop me from being angry."

"I know," her dad says.

They're quiet for a minute, and Cassie takes another bite of her snack.

"I don't know if you want to know this," her dad says. "It wasn't always easy, raising you with Duncan. We had a lot of conflicts over the years."

"Did you?" Cassie asks. "I don't remember that." She remembers her dad and Duncan had different rules for her, but that was true for everyone she knew with two sets of parents.

"Oh, aye." Her dad chuckles. "We disagreed about a lot. But we got through it. And you're a lot smarter than we are. If Kevin wants to be part of your child's life, you can handle it."

That eases a worry Cassie's been trying not to think about. She has so many more immediate worries. "Thanks, Dad." She gets up, drapes her arms over her dad's shoulder in a hug, kisses his cheek. "Don't stay up too late."

"I won't." He's already opening his laptop again when she glances back at him on the way out the door.

Cassie's dad works late, leaving Cassie and Duncan alone for dinner. Duncan is always the life of any party, and he tries to be lighthearted with her. Sometimes she appreciates that, but right now she can't.

"I wasn't angry when I found out about Alan," she says when he's stopped and they're eating in silence. "I was just disappointed. But now that I know what it's like, really know what it's like, I'm angry. I don't want to be, but I am."

Duncan's face freezes into stillness. He puts down his wine glass. "Do you know why I bought this house with Jimmy?"

"So no one had to sleep on the sofa when I came home," Cassie answers. It's the biggest part they talked about at the time.

"Yeah," Duncan says. "That was a big part of it. I also did it because I finally realized something I should have known a lot earlier. I'm not made for commitment, not like Jimmy is, or Fran was. I tried." He looks and sounds earnest. "I tried with Fran, and I really tried with Mary. She chucked me out because she met someone else, but it wasn't as if I hadn't done the same along the way."

Cassie sucks in a deep breath, fighting down the urge to tell him again how angry she is, how disappointed she is.

"I bought this house with Jimmy because I decided it was time to stop hurting the women I love, and the best way for me to do that is not to try to commit in a way I can't." He spreads his hands out. "I like the chase. I like it when it's new. Now I only see people who understand that, and having this place means I'm not tempted to get married or move in with someone just because that's what most people expect."

Cassie toys with her fork. "When I found out about Alan, Dad said Mum would want me to forgive you."

"Fran was always the best of us," Duncan says, "and Jimmy just behind her."

"Do you think she would want me to forgive Kevin?"

"I don't know," Duncan says. "But she might want your child to forgive him someday."

Cassie nods. "I'm trying to forgive you, but it might take some time."

Duncan picks up his plate and takes it to the kitchen. "That's alright. I've been a bit of a bastard."

Cassie lets out the slightest breath of a laugh. She turns and looks up at him when he comes back for her plate. "I love you."

Duncan drops a kiss on the top of her head. "I love you too, sweetheart."


End file.
